Thursday, August 9th, 2018

Ste. Mathieu du Parc, Quebec

What Actually Was

“I sometimes fall into maya,” explained the speaker, Sruta Kirti, to his guru, Prabhupada, who responded with a, “No, you are usually in maya (illusion) and you fall into Krishna.”

This above reminiscence of Sruta, today, gave us a laugh as we heard his flow of pastimes with guru when he was his personal servant in the early ’70s.  It was delightful hearing him speak.  I took advantage of his presence to ask a number of questions regarding the fads or crazes that have arisen in our bhakti-yogacommunity world-wide, many of which have to do with what became norms usually warranted as “Prabhupada said” practices.

Apparently, our guru ate some fruit in the morning with yogurt.  There was no ginger and raw chickpeas as was common.  Ekadasi—the day that falls every two weeks by lunar calculation—is a day to abstain from grains, beans and peas.  That’s it and not the common theories of no eggplant, no mustard oil or mustard seeds, no sesame seeds, no cumin seeds and so on.  In fact, Prabhupada mentioned if you have to eat grains for energy in order to do outreach, such as distributing his books, then he would grant it.

So many rules came into play during his time, rules that were conjured up by his students.  He then complained about his western students always making up so many rules and not following therules and the 16 rounds.

May the Source be with you!

2 km